I was offline doing real life things for a couple days and came back to a pile of mail from people apparently angry at me about an adblocker or something? I have absolutely no idea what this was about, apparently enough people have adblockers on when they come here that it’s a problem or something? And Vorked was trying to fix that? I’m really very confused. I’m doing this site more for the readers than I am for the money and the ads and the traffic, so if the script Vorked was trying to put in made the site wonky for you at all today I wholly apologize. It wasn’t his intention at all, he was just trying to help out.
I dunno, like I said, I had no idea any of this was going on so I’m piecing it together from emails people sent, but it seems like a lot of people were saying if I ask nicely they’ll turn off adblock on the site? So uhm… I guess it would help me out if you allowed ads here? They’re just Project Wonderful ones, so for the most part they just link you off to other webcomics and stuff. Thanks! and uhm… sorry for whatever it was that happened….
And the comic is probably going to be late today because I just spent the past several hours trying to figure out what happened to the internet while I was gone so uh… sorry…
What was going on was I had a script in the making with someone, that would still show the ads if adblock was being used on the site. I let people know about this, and they went baslistic, some agreed, others decided spamming my email was the right thing to do. Either way, it won’t be happening if so many people have this serious of a problem with it. It was all for the well-being of us still getting people to use our ad services. Ever since the amount went up of people using adblocker, our sales have dropped tenfold, we slowed down to pennies a day at one point, and that can’t be used to help anything at all.
But I have seen it slightly on the rise since people did agree to stop using it, so thank you to everyone who is trying to help.
You even posted a big warning about it the other day. Go figure.
If I ever use adblockers I add project wonderful to the white list though. I find a lot of good shit through project wonderful ads.
Here’s the deal: if I like the content of a certain websites, chances are I’ll add it to my Adblock’s whitelist. But if I’m greeted back with advertisement for retarded mobile phone apps, “WIN A IPOD!!!1!” flash games, farting slot machines, annoying sounds or a gigantic ad blocking my view, I’ll immediately remove the website from the whitelist. Even if I’m later greeted with messages like “Thanks for being a jerk and using adblock” like in certain websites.
I’ve made sure to allow you though. I like to support content creators via advertising so long as their advertising isn’t obnoxious or a security risk.
Personally I’m a fan of ads. They’re what allow the creators to make money without my having to spend any. It’s a beautiful thing. I have an adblocker, but I only use it on ridiculously flashy or annoying ads. Anything that expands into a video or plays a loud jingle or spoken message for example. Ads are awesome so long as I can read my comic in peace.
I always allow ads on webcomic sites, at least if I don’t donate. It does seem a little questionable to FORCE people to look at the ads, but if that’s what it takes for people who aren’t actually mindful of that sort of thing to leave them visible, it’s not really a problem.
It’s not like they’re intrusive. Project Wonderful is great.
My rss feed went a bit wonky regarding the issue, was linking to the posts which didn’t exist anymore.
I’ve always had a sense of guilt around adblocker. In a lot (even most) cases it’s warranted, but there’s independent projects like these where I feel it’s hurting the site. Nobody else has really bought this up as a problem before, so thank you for making me more aware of it. Also, adding here to my exception list as soon as I stop typing this.
I trashed the blogs I posted because of the spam and constant posting, and no one listening.
You guys should sell T-shirts to bring in some cash.
That requires time to draw T-shirts, which I am working on, but is very difficult to find. I already spend nearly 20 hours staring at a cintiq some days.
Just put that frame of Jared and the kids riding Mr. Fish on a t-shirt. I’d buy that. :)
As I have said to everybody who has asked for it so far, that panel is not print resolution and would have to be redrawn, and I am still not sold on making products with a pokemon on them. As much as I can say “it’s parody” I don’t have the resources to fight Nintendo if they DO serve me a cease and desist.
I was using a blanket adblocker, and this string of messages made me realize I hadn’t disabled it on here yet. Now I have… so, yay! I shall see your ads now!
same here! Hope it helps!
There, just added you guys to my ABP whitelist, just ask nicely Vorked, and a lot of people will do it, the ones that don’t are just gonna find a way to block them anyway.
This domain is now on my whitelist. The ad blocking “shoot first, ask questions later” is unfortunately the only way I can stand most sites any more. Sad, but true.
It was all my fault. No one else did it. I started it. If you would like an explanation please feel free to contact me by email and i will explain.
It is all right dude, all you did was post it on Reddit.
Thanks. But the offer still stands.
I know you keep saying that if I make merch you’ll buy it to support the site, but you just don’t understand how long it takes to make hi-res designs to put on shirts and posters or hard it is to keep on top of the comic as it is already. I have a job that I go to anywhere from nine to thirteen hours a day, then I come home and work on comics until as late as four or five in the morning. In addition to the webcomic, I have another comic commission that’s financing the new tablet I had to buy to keep drawing this comic (because this comic costs me more money than it makes me and the idea of making enough off of it to afford the equipment it takes to draw it is almost a joke) It is not uncommon for me to be sitting in front of a cintiq for nearly 20 solid hours a day or two out of every week. Hearing people say they want to boycott a means of supporting me that takes absolutely no effort, expense, or commitment on their part and refuse to show their appreciation for the work I’m already doing until I go out of my way to do even more is so disheartening I can’t even properly articulate it. It’s enough to make me want to just flip the table, give up on the whole thing, and go back to a time when I didn’t have to be tired and frustrated through all of my waking hours.
Please keep up the comic making! I and a lot of other people love the comic!
I really don’t understand why there was so much of an outcry about this… It’s ridiculous, your making awesome comics and are losing money, that’s not how it should be…
I usually view the comic trough my RSS reader (google reader in my case) but i noticed the banners don’t get served in there, that might also be a option to reach more people, I believe a lot of readers view the comics in a similar way.
Hmm… I tried adding projectw.org as an exception (I’m assuming that’s Project Wonderful, since it’s the only thing even close to it I saw), but I’m not seeing any ads. Then again, I don’t even know if I’m whitelisting it right. I’m using AdBlock Plus on Firefox, and it’s really… inconvenient. Anyone wanna clue me in on how to do it right on that?
You can simply add exception, or whitelist the entire website so Adblocker wont activate here.
Project Wonderful has details on how to disable it for all their ads http://www.projectwonderful.com/adblock.php
The text-only version (Copy-pasted from the link):
1. In Firefox, click on the “Tools” menu at the top of the screen, and select “Adblock Preferences” or “Adblock Plus Preferences”.
2. A window will open up. Click on the button labelled “Add filter…”.
3. A text field will appear. Copy and paste this into the box:
@@||projectwonderful.com$image,script,object,object_subrequest,stylesheet,xmlhttprequest,document
I saw the posts in the RSS feed…went to the site notice it was project wonderful ads which I don’t block. (Well I use noscript and PW is on my whitelist for that.) It is important to note most people use these sort of things to protect themselves from bad website programming which could let people attack their computer.
Also the fact is it is very easy to make a site use absolutely no scripting at all and still look good.
I understand why people would use adblockers, what I didn’t understand was why I had to come back to the internet after trying to take a very rare day to myself to just hang out and play some video games to find an inbox full of angry people telling me they’re going to reddit to drum up dissent and threatening to boycott the site and or stop crediting me when they share the comics or whatever and chastising me for not just asking people to turn off their adblockers over something I had no idea was going on.
That’ll teach me to try to spend time doing things I enjoy instead of slavishly watching the internet to make sure drama doesn’t happen.
Yeah, that’ll learn ya!
Going off, trying to have a life, bah!
Man I totally agree with having ads, when I watch TV or listen to the radio I there are ads too, and much more annoying, so why would I complain about some tiny ads in a webcomic which is in fact much more interesting/funny than TV or radio?
I added you to my whitelist. I should have doen that some time ago. Thanks for the reminder.
Screw the haters. I say go for the script.
The bitching 1% on the internet will always hate change and will never be able to see themselves as the thing at fault. You’re not running grand obnoxious IGN ads and even if you were, MGDMT is worth it. Just in this case it seems like someone planted a troll rallying flag and was internet bumrushed. That sucks, but these things happen. But really, at worst it’s 50, 100 people bitching? People that wouldn’t just read your damn ads anyway, so how are they really going to be worth supporting anyway?
To said haters: Get a modern browser, ie Chrome. The worst ads don’t run on it, and kwitcherbitching.
To those who said the host/content creating asking for whitelisting is the right way to go. Do you realize how self entitled you appear? If you’re going to be high and mighty about using an ad-blocker, how about you do it yourself? Hey maybe if enough of you had thought about white-listing then the situation wouldn’t have crossed the rubicon.
Considering that the adds are so unobnoxious as they are, just asking nicely is probably easier and will reach the majority of people anyhow, who just “forget” whitelisting (had the site whitelisted for a long time anyhow, so I plead non guilty!) and need only a reminder. That’s also a lot less work than hacking something together ;)
Though no problem with the script either, sure it won’t stop someone halfway dedicated, but most people who know that stuff in detail also know how important ads are.. and there’s always the hope that most people aren’t assholes *shrug*
I’ll admit, I was one of those people. I keep forgetting to whitelist, especially having multiple computers now and a bunch of OS and browser reinstalls. Situation solved, however.
Honestly, you have room for at least another ad slot underneath blogposts. Also, I think if you go with the default size, rather than these tiny ones, you get more for them and also get better bidders. l
With Project Wonderful, and most websites, there are three sizes of ads (Project Wonderful actually has about five). So it was either two that were too large to fit on my designy thingy, this one, or really small annoying ones that just didn’t look right.
These were the closest to making the page feel “right.”
What… the… hell. Some people are so freaking entitled, demanding the *right* to run ad blockers on a site hosting *free* content? Seriously?
Coleasquid, I would just take this as a sign of success. You’ve gotten such a large fanbase that you now have the customary allocation of entitled ***holes. Thank you very much for this webcomics, it is the highlight of my Mondays, and it makes my work day start off much happier.
You have every right to run ads on your site. Don’t listen to the haters.
Soon we shall be like MSPA, and get ALL THE CRAZY PORN ARTISTS AND SHIPPING
I wonder if this has actually had any effect on the sites traffic though. I mean, everyone seems to be complaining about the adds and cartoons, but they are coming here to do so. Hopefully this means that you will get a bit more revenue.
I’m not sure why people use the ad blockers here though. I mean this site has some of the most tastefully placed adds that I’ve seen on a web comic. Especially when compared to some of the lesser comics that have them literally taking up three quarters of the screen and displaying those annoying Evony or pop up ads.
Anyway, just like some of the others, I would like to thank you for the Monday afternoon buzz, to pick me up after the drab boringness of the first day of the week. I hope that you will continue this comic, especially as it appears more details about good old CB are being revealed.Try to avoid and ignore all the idiot Fan Dumb, who you have been providing with entertainment all this time for free.
Especially since Vorked had the courtesy to warn them first, rather then simply springing it on them like many web comic providers would have. Or instead of creating a script that prevented anyone with an add blocker from viewing the comic. I hope the two of you come up with a decision soon, and I once again thank you both for the free entertainment that you have provided all this time.
I also use adblocker as a general defense from all the annoying crud littering the internet and being forced on me. I wouldn’t know if there were meant to be ads on the site or not. Now that you’ve learned about the ad blocking and I’ve learned about the ads I don’t mind helping out. If the ads are for other comics and aren’t flashy, playing stuff, floating around the page and just being danged annoying then I especially don’t mind adding this site to the list to have them come up. :) Originally I got it because I was tired of the ads on deviantart trying to hijack me and stick viruses on my computer.
I really like this comic. I had a great time reading through the whole thing, it made me laugh and I love the artwork, and I also look forward to checking back every week. It shouldn’t be so stressful though. If things are such a hassle lately do just take a break for yourself! Relax more after work instead of mostly slaving away. Guest comics or art is one way but honestly if you just skipped a week or whatever people can just deal with it. :\
I don’t even use a adblocker or what not.
I let those ads be, nothing wrong with it. They are small and don’t even advertise some “get sum viagra” type bullshit.
Don’t lose your sleep, ’cause some people cries over some ads (geez ;D). Like others have said, let those criers be. Just add on your main page some big pic “DEAL WITH IT!” and do nothing. Not your problem really.
This I will add (and many prob agrees): Your webcomic is very awesome and I wish you thousand rainbows of awesomeness. Keep going!
Sincerely yours,
Finnish fan with bad english/grammar (hoh hoh).
I block everything because it is a temptation I cannot afford. I have no money to spend on merch and unfortunately alot of websites have some seriously nice merch and nothing else in their ads. I can barely pay my internet bill, I do not want the temptation for things I cannot have.
However I have never blocked this site because it’s never been a threat, it’s just lead me to comics. Something which I don’t mind because it helps the community thrive.
But I’d be pretty angry if someone tried to take the choice to block ads from me, because it becomes a tend that other websites will follow once they realize that it works. Some sites that I visit have pornographic content in the ads, and I have KIDS so I would really hate the inability to block that because I would have to put the banahmmer on the internet. I don’t wanna be nazimom.
I’m not sure I’m understanding right, and I’m sure that people got insanely stupid and overworked over it(most people do online since they have no consequences :/ ), but if you were trying to make it so that adblock would not work on this site it’s really kind of understandable. Some people simply have things they do not want on their page, for whatever reason. From lowspeed internet, to memory, to having children.
However like I stated above, people most likely got overworked and were grade A jackholes for no reason. It seems common that people constantly demand things from complete strangers that they do not deserve nor are entitled to, and I’m sorry that you had to suffer from that. I hope that this doesn’t kill your inspiration for this comic, it’s one of the few things that my son and I can enjoy together.
>but if you were trying to make it so that adblock would not work on this site it’s really kind of understandable.
I wasn’t trying to do anything but spend a day playing video games, this was just what I was lucky enough to come back to.
I will turn off my adblocker on this site, but ONLY because you asked. And if the ads annoy me, I’ll turn it back on.
Yeah, I hadn’t whitelisted you specifically (fixed!) – although, Project Wonderful is firmly in my whitelist so I’m not sure it made a difference overall. Normally I’d have a problem with scripts to forcibly show the ads, but I *do* want to support you.
I missed the whole thing anyway, but I guess a reminder might work well. For what it’s wome scripts are capable of showing a message where the ad would be (my guess would be CSS z-index layers?) so that if the ad is blocked you can show a message saying something like “If you would like to support the site, please remember to turn off AdBlock on this page.”
…all that aside, keep up the good work, Coelasquid and Vorked both.
“For what it’s wome”
WORTH
It´s unfortunate that most have to use ad-blockers cause so many ads are really annoying and that they block also the “good” ads or the not annoying ones.
I would put an image on the front page that states something like “Please add this site to your whitelist in your ad-blocker, help us in keeping this webcomic online. Thank you.”
This way no one can go ballistic and people (like my myself) who forget adding sites to the whitelist would be remembered of that.
Also in regard to merchandise: Maybe a T-shirt with an small scale image of the commander and something like “Join the Agency” (like an badge in size) or something on the front and the text “The Agency” on the back between the shoulders, could interest people?
This would at least not require an large hi-resolution image…
And I´d like to add: Really really great comic :D
This is unrelated to the ads but at the moment viewing the comics on an iPhone/iPod is not possible. Only the blog posts are available.
This has been fixed. I was trying new mobile website designs.
I don’t know what people are complaing about.
It’s not as though it requires you to scroll heavy amounts to see the comic at all.
Hell, I only see it when posting comments. There’ve been far more intrusive ads I’ve seen in my time.
Adblock is for the poor & irish.
I just manually block what ads I find too obscene or obnoxious, and Projectwonderful has done a good job avoiding that.
…Well, in some rotations, it toes the former’s line, but it’s never past the breaking point. :P
Hey, I am poor and Irish and I don’t use adblock. I would say it’s for the weak though.
I’ve gotten so used to having AdBlock running that I didn’t even realize this site had ads…
On the topic of merch, I’d totally buy a TIALS shirt.
So ummm, what just happened? This wasn’t what I was expecting to see…
I’m using Chrome with no kind of adblocker what-so-ever, and I don’t see any ads ._.
I don’t have an adblocker and I don’t even se-
OH MY GOD THERE’S A TINY ADVERTISEMENT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE ITS SO TEENY AND ADORABLE
Also, a paypal button!
This has been a great learning experience for me.
Not one to make comments usually.. But I’m very sorry that people were such jerks. I really appreciate what you do, and the quality comics you put out. Trying to keep the site afloat or break even is only right.
I’ve turned adblock off for this site now, but I was unaware about the whole drama.. Perhaps a short blog post asking people to consider why they should whitelist this site could generate more views?
Please don’t be disheartened by people acting like spoilt children. There are a lot of us who just keep quiet, but still love what you do.
honestly not sure what happened but its bull. your comics are worthwhile despite idiots being idiots. and i dont even use ad blocker (keep going through computers too fast to even think about getting it.) but thinking about it i wont even get it too support those who use the ads to sponser their site to keep it going :3
Thanks for making a post about this, I completely forgot about not using adblock on your site. I enjoy your comic, and I like supporting things I like, and a way to do that is to put up with whatever ads they may have. So, thanks again, and my adblocker is off on your site now.
I’m sorry that a bunch of douchebags have been giving you grief, C-Squiddy. Since you asked so nicely, and I wish to help keep your excellent comic going, I whitelisted this site. When my tax refund comes in, I’ll make a nice donation to your PayPal account. Keep up the great work!
PS-If you promise to draw more shirtless Commander and Canadian action, I’ll donate more often! 8^)
I run adblocker by default (slow computer, hates ads, little patience). However, I have never actually thought about what that means to the comics and small sites that I love.
Thanks to this I am going through and whitelisting stuff on pages like this.
Thank you for making me more aware that there’s more things than my own comfort that matters here.
Coelasquid, you are a gem. The fact that you spend your shining talents on us with this beautiful hobby makes me willing to wade through pop-ups and banners up to my eyeballs to get my fix. Keep up the amazing work, and keep following the dream.
See, I don’t use an ad-blocker. I understand ( free ) sites need them to keep themselves up and running. I’ve also found that my brain already ignores most ads on sites anyhow. I do, however, use a Flash blocker, so it ends up blocking any ads which use Flash for me.. which tend to be the more annoying ones with sounds and ‘games’. So it’s kind of win-win.. or perhaps win-not lose. I get to block the annoying ads and the site still gets revenue from the not annoying ads.
The nerve of some people, bitching about what keeps the site afloat. I hope this all gets resolved and out of your hair soon, Coela.
I still think that eventually you should sell a coffee table book, I’d definitely buy it. I try not to block ads on comic websites, just because it’s not worth it and it’s usually a help to the artists.
Whooo-ho-ho-hoa, hot damn do some people have a lot of free time.
It has come to my attention that this kind of thing (complaining, raging and just about going apeshit over something incredible, decent or straight out GOOD) has been increasing quite a lot.
Sure, internet arseholes have been around forever, but it seems like they are starting to run out of targets and are going for the big guys. I won’t name other sites or internet-people who also are getting “harassed” like that, but the story is pretty much the same (And more often than not, fans try to cheer the artist up, some enraged fanboys jump into the middle and the whole thing turns into a crazed battlefield of bullshittery).
Really?
Who are these people who overreact and simply lose their heads over the tiniest thing? It’s sad to think not only kids do this kind of stuff, but people who are adults, according to most laws. Is life been really this good that they have this much free time? Wow then tell me what I did wrong and ended up losing that Bus!
Yo Squiddy, I know this might be just another post of another guy, but I am being quite honest when I say that I truly enjoy your work and all the references that you make (Just the fact that you draw that dude from The Bouncer, wow. Yer fantastic) in your works. I ain’t too rich enough to donate you, but like most people, I have the heart to let them ads shine in your page.
I dunno, I think Vorked jumped the gun suggesting changes to the site without talking to me first, but he was trying to help and his heart was in the right place so I can’t be all that beaten up about it. But the backlash was ridiculous, from what I understand he hadn’t even done anything yet, just warned people that he might do something in the future. Apparently that’s worth calling in the trolls over.
I… am not entirely sure whether or not I use an adblocker… I don’t think I do though. I have no complaints about ads. Unless they infect my computer with viruses or something… But you wouldn’t do that to us right?
I’m a jerk.
My boyfriend put my adblocker on.
I have no idea how to whitelist anything.
I don’t completely understand how it all works either but this is what I do: On the upper right corner I think you should see the adblocker icon. When you click it once it will give you the option to allow ads from http://thepunchlineismachismo.com only or something like that. Clicking that will change the color of the adblocker icon from red to green and you should then be able to see the tiny ad beneath the comic or the threads! You’ll probably just have to refresh the site to make it show up. :)
The best thing to do is just to ask people to add this site to the whitelist. I never really considered it but now I went and whitelisted all the webcomics that I regularly visit. So thanks for the reminder.
are you fucking kidding me.
as an artist/designer who struggles occasionally to get people to get pay me for things they ALREADY AGREED TO PAY FOR, this fucking chaps my ass.
you are giving the internet a FREE, professional grade product, at a high expense to yourself. if someone else feels victimized by this arrangement, they are being desperately self centered and short sighted.
I have presumptuous and earnest request. please install the script and take a well deserved break, just stop posting comics for a while. if you have the inclination, make some tshirt designs, find a vendor, maybe do some research on other potential sources of profit. maybe when you get back, the thankless shitheads who took umbrage to the attempt to continue giving them a free service will have moved on.
you are putting out really, really good stuff. honestly, it hurts to see something this great go for free. you deserve to get something more than just overhead out of it. it would be a miserable loss if you got burnt out dealing with thankless bullshit like this.
“you are giving the internet a FREE, professional grade product, at a high expense to yourself. if someone else feels victimized by this arrangement, they are being desperately self centered and short sighted.”
Goodness yes. Seems like I’ve been seeing this a lot lately. Saw someone on a forum start a thread (hastily locked after we had a good laugh at him) bitching out the site owner, the forum admin, and ALL the mods because… someone sent him a PM that he didn’t like. Seriously. And then I hung around in the Minecraft forums for a day (since I like the game) and was shocked by the bunch of entitled pricks there. Good lord, I have never seen so much bile spilled because a man wanted to go on vacation.
But then, haters gonna hate. I once had a site with a trivial readership (maybe 50 people a month) and managed to pick up not one but TWO haters. One of them accused me of hating children. Apparently I was very anti-child or something and made her two year old cry with my evil jokes. (My site was text. 100%. Kid must be a genius.) The other hater went full-on cyberstalker on me. As in tracking down people I knew – or used to know when I was, like, TEN – and e-mailing them about how I was a serial killer.
Anyway, I’m getting too personal. I hope Coelasquid does whatever’s required to keep sane. Everyone else can go to Hell.
Heh, I didn’t even realize that MGDMT had ads before I read your post today. Since you asked and you said it helps to keep your site going, I’ll gladly add it to my whitelist.
I’ve never, ever clicked an ad banner, neither have I ever felt that an advertisement of any sort has done anything other than annoy me. Statistics my ass.
If it means so fucking much, of course I’ll turn off adblock. It just feels kinda pointless and sad.
Oh, and Bill has something to say about this too, I believe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
If it’s going to ruin your day and make you wish for people involved with the site to go kill themselves, don’t bother. I just figured it was more courteous to my readers to put some small advertisements on the site than it would be to aggressively request that they donate money to the new cintiq I bought to replace my broken tablet and improve the quality of the strip.
The ads don’t move, make sounds, scroll, or pop up in front of the content, for the most part they usually lead to other webcomics. They don’t pay me based on clicks, but rather by how much other people are bidding to run their advertisements in those spots. People decide to bid on the ad slots based on how many views they get, so it helps mine appeal to potential bidders if a lot of people see them. You don’t need to click on them or acknowledge their presence in any way other than letting them load to help me get a couple dollars a day.
This isn’t me being greedy, if money was what I cared about I wouldn’t be doing the comic at all. Professional animation pays more per hour than this comic does in a week so it would be a lot more profitable to just take extra freelance in my spare time. But the comic seems to make a lot of people happy, so I keep up with it because I don’t want to dissappoint them. Most people understand the work that goes into this enough to tolerate the two small adboxes, but like I said, if their very presence is going to completely destroy the positive experience you might otherwise get coming to this site and make you miserable, don’t bother. I’d rather you didn’t sit there wishing for me to commit suicide over two 400×60 pixel rectangles I put on the free content I’m providing you with.
Huh? I think i already stated that i disabled adblock.
And sorry if you misinterpreted the bill hicks reference, it wasn’t meant to refer to you at all, just to marketing people in general. I just think it’s really weird to have to play this charade of loading ads (which i will ignore).
But as said before, if it’s helping you, sure I’ll load those ads. I just won’t buy anything of them.
The only money I make off the ads is from the people who want to put them on my site. I’m just saying you know, you get that indignant about it and send me a link to a youtube video saying people involved with advertising should kill themselves, I don’t know how you expect people to interpret that. If you’ve decided that turning your adblocker off makes it okay to talk to me like that, I’d rather you just left it on and kept the violent suggestions to yourself.
Project wonderful ads mean I get a couple bucks a day for my efforts and my readers don’t have to be the ones who give it to me. Turning off your adblock just means my site looks a little friendlier to the people bidding on that space.
Wow, people really do look for anything to get angry about, don’t they? They’re a few tiny banners under the page and comments! Do you really have such bad ADD that you can’t read a webcomic without your eyes zipping to the bottom of the screen and gluing themselves to an ad?
I’d like to point out the vapid pointlessness of vorked’s suggestion anyways.
You cannot, I repeat, CANNOT force a browser extension to turn of with a script on your site. That is not how browsers are built. If you could do that, then any and all websites would always be able to hack into people’s computers at all times. Your script which you say you’re trying to write (which I doubt) is going to fail. Guaranteed.
Second, why do most of you keep saying things like, “I don’t use adblocker” as if there’s a program just called ‘adblocker’? There isn’t. If you’re talking about users of the web browser Firefox, then the extension you want to talk about is “adblock plus.” – Adblock Plus has now been ported to the browser Chrome, replacing AdThwart.
If you want to talk about a generic third-party program that blocks ads, you can say “anad blocker”. Makes me wonder if english is the first language for many of you, which I guess makes the weirdness of the comments forgivable. Even so, there are few generics to name.
Sometimes the blocking of ads is done through a proxy service, most popularly “privoxy,” which is most often paired with TOR, in a combination program/extension pack for internet anonymization.
And then, some people subscribe to manually updated (subscription or otherwise) hosts files for Windows systems that include the exact sets of domains of many advertisement websites, such as projectwonderful.com and all its subdomains, so that a request for an ad is redirected to local, and thus the ad is denied.
So vorked, I have to say, you’ve been talking out your ass. You don’t understand the browser extension and modification landscape, and your threat is flaccid. Not only can you not turn off adblock plus even if you wanted to, but you’re going to also be attacking people who aren’t even using it. Hell, sometimes people just turn off third-party images in their browsers for a while, which means static ads or images called up by ad-scripts will not load.
People who block ads are not out to get you, so threatening to hack their systems just makes you an asshole. Don’t do that. People already hate cpalead.com/cpalock.com with a passion, dedicating many noscript and adblockplus.org forum posts to eradicating their malignant re-directs. I’m telling you, if you try to emulate their tactics, people are stop visiting your site and give you a bad reputation.
Anybody know how people don’t like the air-conditioning/heating company Lennox? Yeah. That’ll be you.
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In the end, you have to understand that people are dealing threats with metered internet, and most malicious content on the internet (e.g. viruses) come from ads. Viewing ads is not passive. It is something that is downloaded onto our computers that we have to deal with, the risks and the used bandwidth that can be leveraged against us if our internet is metered, or if it’s just slow enough that ad-blocking makes all the difference. You don’t have an intrinsic right to put stuff on our computers we didn’t ask for. It’s not a tax and you’re not providing a public service. Think about that while you’re sitting there in your chair stewing about how us Adblock Plus users are just leeching off of your work.
I know when whoever it was went to Reddit to drum up buzz he was making it sound like this site is covered in blinking flashing doodahs that play sounds and pop up over the content and offer you free ipods, but if you turn your adblock off you’ll notice that all this fuss is over two small stationary 400×60 pixel jpegs that advertise other webcomics through project wonderful. I held off putting ads on the site for nearly a year and kept the page running out of my own pocket and the charity of others, but my tablet broke and the guy who generously hosts the site said traffic was increasing to the point it was going to need a dedicated server. I figured it would be more polite of me to put up some out-of-the-way ads up that would get me a couple dollars a day than ask my readers to pay for the cintiq I bought so I could continue to draw the comic. I don’t think this is me being greedy or out of line, because I put well over eight hours of time into these pages every week and at the rate the ads make money it will be a year before they cover the cost of my new tablet. But that’s still something, and something is better than nothing.
For the record, I did not ask for the script that Vorked was talking about. I didn’t even know he was planning it. All I did was leave the internet for two days to hang out with my boyfriend and play video games and I came back to people making threats and calling me a disingenuous authoritarian and telling me to kill myself. I was resistant enough to putting up the ads in the first place that I try not to call too much attention to them and trust that as long as they’re there I must be getting some kind of revenue off of them. I think he kind of invented a problem ihis head where there wasn’t one, or at least exaggerated an existing one, and tried to find a fix to it. He meant well and I can’t hold it against him for trying to help me out, but it’s unfortunate that this is my website with my name attached to it first and foremost, so the things he does without my knowledge are going to reflect on me.
However, I think complaining that allowing my ads to show is going to be a huge hit against your metered internet is also blowing things out of proportion. Presently, the two ads together add up to less than 100Kb. They take up roughly as much bandwidth as two livejournal icons. The rest of the site is pretty bare bones, just pretend I’m sparing the bandwidth that could have gone into menu buttons and blog avatars and putting it towards the ads. It’s unfortunate that you don’t think allowing two icon-sized stationary graphics to load on this page and help me get a couple dollars at no cost to you isn’t worth the work I’m doing here but if that’s the way it is there isn’t a whole lot I can do about that. The site lasted this long without any ads, I guess it isn’t going to sink because a couple people refuse to whitelist it out of moral outrage.
Wow, what a blowhard.
Coela you should put ads IN the comic. Let ’em block that. hahaha
Carpe chaos does it that way, btw, so I’m not totally kidding
http://carpechaos.com/
That was not what I was doing. And I care not what other things people could have done to block it, because most people do not know how to do that. All I was working on was a script that constantly reloaded the image, and it was working, except for some hefty laggy bugs that made bad enough to not use.
ads are how i find most of my web comics so i love them.
but when you get the ones that flash and that take up the screen on the ones that make noise then i’m no to impressed. But im not about to rage just cause there are a few ads here and there. there what helps support these comics and i support that.
get the script. those people who whine at the inconvenience of loading a few extra images do not deserve the effort. even if the ads on this site had malware, i would use a fucking vm to view it, but i will.
Aerik have said everything that i could say.
As for the ads, i can say it’s perfectly normal when only 1-2% out of 1000 views are leading to clicks, i.e. money, and people who turn off the ads is even less motivated to click onto anything. If you’re earning money on ad views, you really just had to ask us. I myself turned off my adblock plus for your site, if that helps, but i assume many readers are viewing RSS feed, and you aren’t using it for ads? at least, i’ve seen none so far. even if it’s shortened to make people go and view the page, you could still use it.
As I said in my response to Aerik, I didn’t think there was any issue with the ads, this all happened completely without my knowledge.